TheLearnedOne Doesn’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Chances are that when a co-worker introduced Bob Learned (a.k.a- TheLearnedOne) to Experts Exchange in 1999, he had no idea that in the year 2012, he’d still be one of the site’s most active members. Since that fateful day 13 years ago, Bob has earned 37 certificates on Experts Exchange, including six Genius certificates in .NET, VB.Net, C# Programming, Visual C#.Net, Visual Studio and ASP.Net.

For Bob, teaching folks new things on Experts Exchange is learning:

“If you read something, you retain a certain amount. If you read and write something you retain it a little more. If you read, write and teach it to someone you retain a whole lot more. In the teaching, I have the opportunity to learn,” Bob says.

Born in Tuscan, Arizona and raised in San Diego, CA, Bob currently resides in Ohio with his wife Donna and step-daughter Jennifer. When he’s not answering questions or volunteering as a Zone Advisor on Experts Exchange, Bob dabbles in digital photography, cooking, hiking, gardening and home repair. Perhaps it’s his knack for repairing things that led him to the most interesting problem he’s ever solved: replacing the cooling fan in his Wii console.

“Nintendo charges $75 to do it, and I was able to replace the fan for only six dollars,” he says proudly.

As if his hobbies alone weren’t enough to keep him busy, Bob works full time for a marketing firm, a job he says challenges him daily and affords him the opportunity to learn something new all the time.

If you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Bob in real life—as many of us here at the Experts Exchange office have—you’d know that he is one of the most good natured, likeable guys you’ll ever come across. If he had it to do all over again, Bob says he wouldn’t change a thing for fear of throwing off the cosmic balance of the universe (e.g.- The Butterfly Effect). Perhaps his lack of regrets and sunny disposition has something to do with his life philosophy: